Your Favorite Musicians’ Favorite Musicians

Here at Flavorpill, we’re into music. And like any group of music nerds with access to the Internet, we like garnering suggestions from people we trust about the best bands out there. So who better to suggest some great musicians than, well, some great musicians? After all, they should be experts on the subject. Here, we’ve compiled a list of our favorite musicians’ own favorite musicians for your listening — and obsessing — pleasure. After all, if you live, breathe and sleep Frank Zappa (as yours truly admits to doing for a spell in her teenage years), now you know which bands to listen to, just to, you know, complete the experience. Of course, just like us mortals (and probably even more so), musicians’ favorite bands change with their mood, the season and what they ate for lunch, so consider the following a snapshot, or in at least one case, just what John Darnielle would say in front of a firing squad. Ah, obsession.

The Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle — The Stockholm Monsters

Of course, a guy like John Darnielle has a million favorite bands (we’ve heard him rave about Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell, Lifter Puller, and of course Black Sabbath), but he’s said that underrated 80’s band The Stockholm Monsters’ album Alma Mater was “probably [his] favorite album ever.” As for his favorite death metal album? As he told Nerve, “If I was in front of a firing squad and the only way out were to answer the question, it’s Don’t Break the Oathfor sure, but this is partly because if dudes were bent on shooting me anyway, ‘Don’t Break the Oath’ would be some kick-ass last words.” This from a guy whose favorite band was Heart until he got to high school.